The boys made it! Fall term ended on Friday 21 December. It has been a challenging term on all sorts of levels but they have done so well; indeed better than we ever expected given language issues, the new school, etc., etc. Biased parents of course, but still... They are now on holidays for two weeks...time to laze about and have fun. Dennis (Jan's father) and his wife Peggie are in Paris for three weeks or so so we'll be seeing them and going to various sites playing the tourist.
Many of the photographs above were taken at dawn on Friday during the trip to and from school. The pics were taken without a flash so the boys are blurry given their fast paced walking. School starts at 8:30 am at the earliest and the sun is just coming up. I honestly don't know how we ever managed the 6:00 am start in Madison so as to get to the school bus stop at 7:10 am for a 7:45 am school day start. This is hard enough. The Metro trip to school involves one transfer to a busier line and this week the line was seriously jammed with passengers, Tokyo style. Quite the wake-up device!
Festive winter scenes throughout Paris right now. Stores and neighbourhood shopping streets take their decorating very seriously, but it is not overdone. They seem to shop for presents but seriously, so low volume but with much care and attention. And it is clearly the season to eat raw oysters - they are available everywhere, with 3-6 options with respect to size, type, and place of origin. Interesting subtle differences to life that we are starting to pick up.
Speaking of presents, I have some shopping to tend to...
